The Masks of Comedy and Tragedy
by Jack Of Spades 505
Summary: Raven befriends a girl that is just as dark and strange as herself. What could possibly happen?
1. Introduced

The first time Raven ever laid eyes on her was in a home and hardware store, of all places.

Though Raven herself wasn't there by choice, it was a necessary trip for Cyborg, and bringing someone else along was just something he had always done. She felt like casting a curse on the others who where still back at the tower, however.

Though the Titans trips to places like this where so lacking in anything interesting they where hardly worth mentioning, Raven at least felt relieved that this mammoth building was big enough where she could get away from the raving man/machine while he ogled new versions of all the tools he had broken during repair jobs.

Luckily enough, people here seemed to avoid her altogether, which left her more than enough freedom to wander aimlessly though gargantuan aisles and look through all of the junk with enough boredom to kill her.

It wasn't until she got to the aisle that was stocked with gardening tools that she first saw the girl, and almost missed her entirely due to the fact that there was a hand truck parked in front of her that was stacked with all sorts of things. Pausing just long enough to look, the first thing she noticed was that the girl seemed to be her age, but was standing there by herself, her attention fixed a heavy duty shovel she was currently examining.

She was extremely pale, enough to rival Raven herself, and was dressed in a strange looking black suit that even had a dark grey tie to go along with the ensemble. Strangely enough, the girl was also sporting a black derby, perched on her brown-haired head.

Glancing from her to her hand truck again, Raven almost grinned when she saw a pile of axes, saws, sickles, spades, hammers, and various other tools and the like, piled chaotically on the metal cart.

"Planning to get rid of a body?" Raven sighed, her cloaked form still standing at the end of the aisle.

Still examining the fiberglass handled shovel, the girl lowered it after a few seconds and turned to her, a strange grin on her face as she answered, "Maybe a few, if I'm lucky. Still, 39 dollars for a shovel?"

Raven shrugged half-heartedly, stepping closer to the girl as she raised the tool back up and set it in its place on the rack. It wasn't until then that she realized the girls eyes where a far paler blue than normal, the color barely much different than the whites of her eyes.

"You look familiar." The strange girl said, looking her over as she rubbed her chin. "Who are you?"

"I'm Raven, of the Teen Titans."

The fact that she hadn't known her just by seeing her told her that this girl was probably not from around here.

"Ah, I see. That team that lives in the 'T'. My name is Matilda Kassidy." The girl answered, looking more amused. "You're that sorceress, aren't you?"

Raven simply nodded, her face still expressionless.

"Interesting to meet you, especially in a place like this. I just moved to the area recently, so you'll forgive me if I don't ask you for your autograph, or something like that. I have a lot of things I need to get, and not everything is ready yet."

Raven shrugged again, before answering, "I actually prefer when people don't, though it is nice to have a talk with someone intelligent."

"Oh, you can tell?"

"You put the shovel back, didn't you?"

Matilda nodded, the grin on her face getting bigger. Reaching underneath her jacket, she slipped her hand into a pocket on the red shirt underneath it, pulling out a small book and flipping it open to the first page. Nodding at it, she snapped the little thing closed and shoved it back into it's pocket, before turning back to Raven.

"You've heard of the old Hentman Sanitarium, haven't you? Outside of the city?" Matilda asked, her hands resting on her hips, even though you couldn't see them that well in the suit she was in.

Raven thought for a moment, realizing she hadn't really heard much about it. She knew that there where several abandoned buildings that where not that far from the city, like the old stadium that Cyborg and Atlas had fought in, but she couldn't remember hearing about an old sanitarium. It must have been pretty far from here.

"I guess you haven't." Matilda spoke, noticing her silence. "Anyway, it's not a sanitarium anymore. It's the Kassidy Estate now. My father managed to get all the paperwork and stuff, but don't even ask me how."

"You're family is renovating an asylum? What are you buying these for? Shouldn't a construction team already have everything?" Raven questioned, feeling a bit more intrigued by this. So far she could tell the girl wasn't lying, but it was still very out of place to hear. There was still the realization that she was talking to a rich girl, but that hadn't dawned on her just yet.

"These? They're for me. My old ones where junk." Matilda answered, her cheeks blushing a soft pink as she eyed the tools.

"Okay."

"You should come and take a look before at the place before they get everything fixed. It's got this really creepy feeling to it. Especially when you go through the hallways at night, and everything creaks. It's like someone is following you." Matilda added, looking back up at Raven. "You're into that kind of thing, aren't you?"

"I tend to get my fill of it from the things we Titans deal with."

"Aww, too bad. Maybe another time."

Raven could only shrug again, though she doubted this would happen. A little curious, Raven decided to simply ask, "You wouldn't simply be trying to show off to me, would you?"

The strange girl simply chuckled softly, shaking her head. "The dead never need to show off to the living."

Raising an eyebrow, Raven could only stare at her for a moment, waiting for Matilda to say it was a joke of some sort, before she realized something. She wasn't sensing any of the emotion from this girl that she normally had to tune out with others. She could explain this as a few different things, but something about this girl was definitely not right.

"Weren't expecting it, where you?" Matilda smiled, her hands raising up and grabbing onto another shovel, which she looked over quickly and lowered onto her hand truck.

"I don't necessarily believe you, either."

"That's good, because I don't believe you're the same type of creature as Wonder Woman or Superman. The real question is; what exactly are we trying to be?"

Staying silent for a moment as Matilda put her hands on the metal cart again, Raven simply blinked as she thought about this.

"I've enjoyed chatting with you, Raven." The girl said, her hand raising again and tipping her hat in the Titans direction. "If you're ever up for a bit of fun, look me up. I will say that my definition of fun is a bit more… grim than most, but to each her own. I'll see you some night, maybe. Keep busy, if you can."

With that, the girl simply strolled off, her carts wheels screeching against the floor with a hideous noise. Matilda cursed once, and then was gone around the corner.

"That is definitely a strange girl." Raven sighed, shaking her head.

Time to get out of here, though. Cyborg should be done by now, or something very bad was going to happen to him.

Continued!


	2. In The Dark

Author note- before you ask, I'll be alternating the focus on characters in each chapter between Raven and Matilda. To make it interesting.

(Kassidy Estate)

This time of night, the only sound that you heard was the chirping and singing of insects, especially in this area. The grounds on the former asylum spread almost as far as you could look, and the only thing that could be considered close amongst the trees and small hills was several miles from here.

Though it was after midnight, and there was far too much cloud cover for the moon to illuminate much, save for a small break every now and then, this was probably the perfect time for someone like Matilda, who was just sitting down to take a short break in the middle of nowhere. Somewhere around a half mile away from the gigantic building that was her new home, the pale girl was stretching her limbs out, the area glowing softly from the light of a large lantern that was on the ground beside her.

She had stopped a stones throw away from a large cluster of trees that seemed to stretch across the land like a natural fence, with only a sheathed blade hooked to her waist and dressed in ragged, stained clothes. Her appearance less refined than earlier, she looked quite a bit different.

Lying there for a moment, she simply closed her eyes and let the coolness of the damp grass soak through her, letting the sound of all the insects around her fade for a short time. Before she got too into it however, she felt a large moth land on the side of her face, and opened her eyes slowly at the sound of something moving through the tall grass.

Looking to her left, she almost grinned at the sight of a dark shape moving towards her in the night, sitting up slightly as the figure got close enough to be visible in the lantern light. The moth flew off of her, fluttering chaotically around the light, ignored by the person cloaked in a blue robe.

"What are you doing out here?" the figure said, sounding a little concerned as Matilda leaned back slightly onto her hands, almost slipping.

"Raven. Nice to see you again." Matilda said, her grin changing slightly. "Come to help me out?"

"I came here to find out exactly what is going on, and I have to tell you… I'm a little confused."

"About what?" Matilda asked, her eyes showing her curiosity.

Raven sighed, explaining further as she stared down at the girl. "You where telling the truth about this being an old sanitarium. I found out it was bought by a Mr. Kassidy, and is a private estate now. But… where is your family? Are you the only one here?"

"My family isn't here yet, and the construction crew is only here in the daytime, so… yes." She answered simply, not seeming bothered in the slightest.

"You aren't bothered by the fact that you're a very rich 17 year old girl, out here alone in the middle of the night, miles from the nearest soul? With only a knife?"

"You sound like you would be afraid to do this."

Raven almost sighed, answering, "I don't scare easily."

Her grin fading, Matilda stared at Raven for a few seconds in silence before shifting her weight and pushing herself up onto her feet. Brushing her backside to get any bits of damp grass off, Matilda simply leaned down and gripped a knob on the lantern. Twisting it slightly, their forms where cast into darkness as the lamp dimmed suddenly, becoming only a faint flicker of light that was too weak to illuminate much of anything.

Her voice nearby as Ravens eyes tried to adjust to the pitch black, Matilda simply answered, "To answer your question; Do you think you could find me out here, in this?"

Raven was silent, as she thought about this. There where a few ways you could, but it would take either seeing in the dark or a flashlight. Without those, she probably couldn't. What was irritating was the fact that she had answered it so simply.

The faint sound of something swishing through the grass told Raven that Matilda was moving, but she couldn't tell what direction she was heading.

For a moment, Raven wondered what the heck she was doing, standing out here in the dark at this time of night, with a person she had just met.

"Do you feel like going for a walk, Raven?" Matilda's voice asked, sounding further away. "Maybe having a little talk? It's not that far, but how often do you get such a peaceful night?"

"I'm not sure if this is most peoples definition of peaceful, but why not." Raven answered, stepping forward as the light of the lantern began to glow again, this time several feet away from her, held in Matilda's hand. "I didn't come all the way out here to waste my time."

Waiting until the Titan got closer, Matilda turned and began to walk ahead of her, leading her further away from the former asylum and into the trees, a curious look still on her face. "Why did you come out here?"

"I was a little curious. You seem different than most people, I think. The fact that you said something about yourself being dead also makes me somewhat suspicious." Raven answered, keeping her eyes on where she was walking as she tried to ignore the grass that was tall enough to brush across her knees, getting her legs a little wet.

"Ahh, I see. You're hoping to have a discussion on that, I take. You're expecting me to prove it?"

"It would help."

Matilda simply chuckled, pushing through some brush and snapping several twigs under her feet as she walked. "Okay, let me put it to you this way. When you watch a movie with zombies in it, how can you tell exactly who is a zombie and who isn't?"

Wondering where this was going as she floated herself a few inches above the ground to escape the damp undergrowth, Raven answered, "The movies that I've seen are fairly stupid, but it's the same in all of them. The zombies are the ones that are decaying where they stand. They've died and come back through some means of infection, usually. They shuffle around like brainless creatures until they find something living to rip apart with their teeth."

Stopping for a moment, Matilda simply looked back with a look of fake surprise, mock gasping, "Oh! They do? But… why would something that doesn't need to eat to keep its body going need to devour the internal organs of the living?"

There was a moment of silence, before Raven answered. "I told you. They where stupid movies."

"Most movies are." The girl laughed softly, before lowering the lantern to the ground again. "Vampires, werewolves, creatures of the sea, demons, ghosts. All these things you see bastardized in modern culture are all things that people fear simply because they are afraid of something that will take them in its grasp and tear their lives away from them. That doesn't mean they don't exist, however."

Raven could agree with that, considering she was living proof, in a way. As she lowered herself to the ground and glanced around at the surrounding trees that where bathed in the lanterns light, she was a little surprised when Matilda took a few steps. Reaching out with her free hand, Matilda calmly took Ravens hand from underneath her cape, and casually placed it just above her breast, pressing the girl's fingers firmly against her.

Though Raven almost jerked her hand away, she was a little surprised to see that Matilda's grip was stronger than she thought, but even more surprising to her was the fact that the girl felt so cold, even to someone like herself.

"Don't be embarrassed. I'm not forcing you to cop a feel." Matilda spoke, looking more amused than anything else. "It's just a lot less dramatic for you to not feel a heartbeat than for me prove it by driving a knife into myself."

Raven could only blink a few times as she listened, realizing that this was all too true: though her hand was pressed directly onto where her heart should sit, Raven felt nothing. There was no pulse, no beating heart or blood coursing through her veins.

Letting go, Matilda chuckled softly as Raven lowered her hand, a shielded look of surprise on her face. It took a few moments for her to process the fact that she was out here with someone who shouldn't be talking or walking, but after a moment, Matilda simply gestured for them to continue on.

"Hopefully that satisfies your curiosity about what I said. I will say that I've never eaten brains, and I only stumble around brainlessly when I'm unconscious for too long."

"Unconscious?"

"Maybe I should call it repetitive death?" Matilda questioned, her pale eyes glancing back at Raven.

Raven almost sighed, and for a moment she could only think about the kind of strange luck she had here. An undead girl with a sense of humor.

"Anyway, we're almost there. Since your still here, I'll show you why I have the knife." Matilda added, patting the heavy blade at her hip.

Continued!


End file.
